Our Socially Distant Read Along of The Goblin Emperor continues! This week we discussed Chapters 5 – 10, which meant attending Maia’s coronation, and meeting his ridiculously complex royal family.

There was also, predictably, much general squeeing about our favorite Goblin. We’ve rounded up a few highlights below!

Let’s start with a reader request:

Agreed on all counts!

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Family Reunion

Maia meets his family as they swear undying fealty to him, and it’s very awkward! His family is also huge because his father married five times, so we put together a handy guide for most of them:

(Unfortunately Nemriän’s husband, Marquess Imel, didn’t quite fit into the character count, but it’s not much of a spoiler to say the Marquess (while possibly a fine and noble Elf) is a non-entity in this book.) Maia’s lack of family connection seemed to make more an impact on our readers this week than the coronation itself—although that makes sense, since this is literally the first time he’s meeting most of his relatives.

And as with all things Maia, the family meeting is weighted with loneliness and lost opportunities:

Fun with Genre!

On rereading the book, one genre element leapt out in a way that never seemed obvious before:

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Petty Empresses

And speaking of Empresses, this week Csoru Zhasanai got some love:

And Finally We Present Emperor, And We Cannot Stress The Enough, Cinnamon Roll:

Join us on Twitter on Wednesday at 2:00 PM, EDT (#TorDotReads!), when we’ll discuss Chapters 11-16, “The Funeral and the Wake,” “The Princess and the Witness,” “Bargaining,” “Min Nedaö Vechin,” “The Problem of Setheris,” and “News from Barizhan.” We can’t wait to talk about Maia some more—and we can’t wait for you to meet Nedaö Vechin!